P-element Transposition in Drosophila melanogaster to Achieve a deletion of the G_iα65A Gene

Authors

Oliva Johnson, Grand Valley State University
Martin Burg, Grand Valley State University

Keywords

P-element transposition, genes, Drosophila melanogaster

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

Abstract

P-element transposition is useful for generating new mutations in Drosophila melanogaster, and can lead to the expansion in our knowledge of many genes. In this project, flies containing two copies of the pHdc-5’UTR-eGFP transgene (12-2), were exposed to the transposase source Δ2-3 to generate excisional (deletion) events. These putative deletion flies were then examined for potentially homozygous lethal mutations, and also crossed to homozygous 12-2 flies to determine whether the 12-2 insert itself causes any haplo-lethality. Chi square statistical analysis revealed that 11 of the 12 lines which did posses a lethal deletion did not display significant variation among genotypes when placed in combination with the 12-2 insert, suggesting that the 12-2 insert does not cause a haplo-lethal phenotype. This result is important, as this insert, along with another copy of the pHdc-eGFP transgene, appears to inhibit the expression of the endogenous Hdc gene when together oin the fly’s genome. These results suggest that this inhibition of Hdc expression by the 2 pHdc-eGFP transgenes is a result of the copy number of the gene and not the insertional mutagenesis of the G_iα65A Gene .

ScholarWorks Citation

Johnson, Oliva and Burg, Martin, "P-element Transposition in Drosophila melanogaster to Achieve a deletion of the G_iα65A Gene" (2010). Honors Projects. 40.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/honorsprojects/40